Pashinyan Asks Erdogan for Help in Releasing Prisoners of War and Demarcating the Armenia-Azerbaijan Border

In Prague, Pashinyan has requested assistance from Erdogan regarding the release of prisoners of war and the demarcation of the Armenia-Azerbaijan border. This was reported by the Turkish Al-Monitor.

“The recent meeting between the leaders of Turkey and Armenia, their first in 13 years, has revived the prospects for normalizing relations between the two neighboring countries, with expectations heightened by the fact that Armenia and Azerbaijan have agreed to an EU civilian monitoring mission. Erdogan, Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev, and Armenia’s Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan met on October 6 in Prague during a European summit, after which the Turkish and Armenian leaders held bilateral talks. The last high-level meetings between the two countries occurred in 2008 and 2009, resulting in agreements to establish diplomatic relations and open the border, which ultimately did not materialize,” the report states.

According to sources from the article, Pashinyan wants the border to be drawn based not on pre-Soviet but on Soviet-era maps. “Erdogan is particularly interested in the prospective transport connection between Azerbaijan and its exclave Nakhchivan, which is separated from the mainland by a strip of Armenian territory and has a narrow border with Turkey. For Ankara, this route, often referred to as the Zangezur corridor, would provide the shortest path to Central Asia,” the report adds.

Erdogan stated that Pashinyan has made specific requests that the foreign ministers and special envoys of the two countries will discuss. Since January, special representatives have met four times. Their fifth meeting, scheduled for September, collapsed amid a new wave of Azerbaijan-Armenia clashes.

Al-Monitor has learned that Pashinyan has asked Erdogan for assistance in the release of prisoners of war and the demarcation of the Armenia-Azerbaijan border. Sources indicate that Pashinyan wishes the border to be delineated based on Soviet-era maps, which may lead to the loss of Armenian territory,” the report stated.

It is noted that Erdogan, in turn, raised the issue of the transport corridor and reiterated that Yerevan must cease its international campaign to recognize the massacres of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire as genocide.